


as if death itself were undone

by platinum_firebird



Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Altar Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, Blood As Lube, Character Turned Into Vampire, Clothed Sex, Diary/Journal, M/M, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Original Character Death(s), Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:20:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21811444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platinum_firebird/pseuds/platinum_firebird
Summary: "At the foot of my bed I beheld the Count, and behind him arrayed were the three Weird Sisters; all of them staring, with cruel, fond smiles on their beautiful faces as they watched me. “When will we welcome him?” the fair one asked. No longer did she look on me with hunger; now her face reflected an eager anticipation.“Soon,” the Count said. “Can you not see how he weakens? In but a few more days he shall be ours.” He looked on me with such a strange expression; had I seen it on a woman, I might have called it desire."No longer having need of his services as a solicitor, Count Dracula decides Jonathan might serve him in other ways.
Relationships: Count Dracula/Jonathan Harker
Comments: 26
Kudos: 502
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evandar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/gifts).



> I finally read Dracula for the first time this year, and I desperately wanted vampire!Jonathan to happen as I was reading. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

_Jonathan Harker’s Journal - continued_

_16 May. -_ I awoke in my own bed. The waking was slow, and heavy, as if I surfaced from beneath the depths of a great lake. For long I lay still, wondering if what had passed last night was real or merely a dream; but I had no memory of returning to my room, or of undressing myself and laying down to sleep. It must, then, have been the Count who carried me here. I rose to look about the room, though a strange lethargy seemed to have come over me, rendering my limbs heavy and weak, all accompanied by a throbbing in my head that took several minutes to dissipate. But when I was finally able to rise, I found that my clothes, though neatly folded, were not laid out in my usual manner, and that my watch was still unwound. Neither instance would bear the scrutiny of a judge, but my mind did not rest any easier.

Surely the horrific events of last night were a dream, conjured up by nerves and the incipient cloud of gloom that hangs over this place? My heart fears to believe that such things could be real - but they _felt_ real, so much so that even sitting here now in the full light of morning, I cannot convince myself that I was asleep.

It began with the appearance of the three Weird Sisters, and the harm at their hands that I so narrowly escaped. Though I fear and loathe him so, I know that had the Count not been there, I might even now be a victim in their fell clutches.

Once he had dispatched them with the grim contents of that dreadful bag, I succumbed to the pure horror of what I had seen, and fell into unconsciousness - or so I thought. This final event was most dreamlike of all, and I am tempted to think it truly was not real - perhaps a nightmare that gripped me as the Count carried me back to my room (if carry me he did; still I must most earnestly hope that the entire episode was but a phantasm of my tortured mind). I seemed to recover from my faint, though still I felt as if I were dreaming, or perhaps gripped by a trance. I was sitting now on the couch, with the Count on one knee before me, in a strange pantomime of supplication. I know not how long he stared; but then he raised one hand and gripped my chin, forcing me to look into his burning red eyes. His lips formed words, but I did not understand; then he used his grip on my chin to tilt my head up, exposing the bare column of my throat. I felt his lips press there, as if in a kiss; and then came a sharp sting, as of a needle driven into my flesh. I fell into a swoon, and knew no more.

The Weird Sisters spoke of giving me ‘kisses’, and the Count warned them off; but did he not himself kiss my throat, after they were gone? Perhaps he means to keep me for himself alone?

The thought is not a comforting one.

*****

_Later -_ The Count did not visit me today, for which I was most grateful. Food was left, though I did not see by whom; I spent the day in the library, trying to recover and soothe my sorely tested nerves through the most simple pleasure of reading. It was not sufficient distraction to keep me from many dark thoughts, and the image of the Weird Sisters still haunts my mind, as does the touch of the Count’s lips on my throat. To that my thoughts return an inordinate amount, though I cannot fathom why.

As the Count does not seem likely to appear, I have prepared myself for sleep; yet I sit here at the edge of the bed, unable to rest. I know that I should take advantage of the Count’s absence to turn in at a more suitable hour than I have been accustomed while at the castle, and yet my mind cannot find peace.

Were the events of last night truly a dream? If so - am I losing my mind?

Yet if not, then what manner of place is this? And what manner of creatures inhabit it?

*****

_17 May. -_ I must have fallen asleep even as I sat and pondered those terrible questions, for I found my eyes opening to the first light of dawn, and my diary still lying beside me on the bedclothes. I recall very faintly the image of someone standing over me, though whether it was reality or dream I cannot tell. If it was not a dream, did the Count come to see me after all? The thought of him watching me sleep is very unsettling, but as the Count is accustomed to being both host and servant to his guests, I suppose it is not so odd to him to enter a guest’s room while he sleeps. Still, the idea is troubling - though I doubt I will have the courage to bring it up to him, should he appear today.

Another odd thing; when I woke this morning I experienced again the strange lethargy and weakness as yesterday, though this time it was increased tenfold. It must have taken me nearly a half hour to gather the strength to rise and dress, and then to make my way through to the dining room, where food was already waiting. Breakfast restored me a little, though not as much as I had hoped. I must take care; there will be no spying on the Count - and certainly no chance of escaping him - if I fall ill. I will wrap myself in a rug and stoke the fire high, the better to avoid catching a chill.

*****

_18 May. -_ My illness is manifestly worse this morning; it was a trial to rise from bed, though I found I had the strength for it in the end. I cannot have caught cold, for I have no running nose or high temperature; I am simply tired beyond belief, and so weak that it is an effort to walk very far or do much of anything at all.

Despite my illness I had a thought to shave, for I detest the idea of appearing in a weakened, unkempt state to the Count. Once I observed myself in the reflective surface of my shaving pot, however, all thought of ablutions flew from my mind. The face reflected back at me was deathly pale, and drawn taunt and sharp around the eyes. It is far different than I have ever seen myself look - and yet the discomfort was in the familiarity, not the difference.

These events frustrate me beyond measure - not only a prisoner, but sickened and weakening too! If ever I am to escape this castle, I must regain my strength!

*****

_19 May. -_ I ate but little yesterday; and now that I have finally managed to drag myself to the breakfast table this morning, I find the food is like ashes in my mouth. It is the same as I have eaten every day since my arrival here at the castle, and yet today I find it of a sudden absolutely intolerable. I sit at the breakfast table now, and despite how little I have eaten, nothing in the foodstuffs laid out produces so much as a flicker of hunger in me. And again I am so weak; rising, dressing, even sitting upright here at the table is a trial. I begin to wish that the Count would come back, if only that I might convince him to call a doctor.

*****

_20 May. -_ The Count did finally return yesterday, and was most concerned to learn of my illness. I almost begged him to call a doctor, and he agreed that he would send for someone; though he warned me that as the castle is so remote, it may take some days before the messenger arrives at the doctor’s home and brings him back. I told him I was content to wait, but in my heart I am deathly anxious. My condition was bad yesterday, and it has only grown worse. I sicken, it seems, by the day; will the physician be in time, if he does come?

The Count was very solicitous, and insisted that I was to remain abed this morning. I found myself grateful for it, for I am not sure I could have risen this morning without aid. Still, seeing the covered breakfast tray laid out for me by the bed made me uneasy. Why does the Count not walk abroad in the daytime? Why is it that I only see him at night?

I must try to eat, even if the taste is vile to me. If I can regain even a little of my former health - or even simply prevent a further slide into illness - then maybe I will live to see the doctor, and he can help me get well.

*****

_23 May. -_ It has become a trial to even write in this diary; I only do so today because of what occurred last night, which I feel I must note down.

I have been too weak to rise from bed these last several days; yesterday I was not even strong enough to hold a book, and was forced to lie staring at the ceiling, slipping from sleep to alertness with no thought as to the hour or time of day. It was in one of these moments of sleep, perhaps, that this episode occurred; and in that event, it must all have been a dream. But something in me is convinced it was not.

I felt that I was in some kind of heavy trance, as if hypnotised. At the foot of my bed I beheld the Count, and behind him arrayed were the three Weird Sisters; all of them staring, with cruel, fond smiles on their beautiful faces as they watched me. “When will we welcome him?” the fair one asked. No longer did she look on me with hunger; now her face reflected an eager anticipation.

“Soon,” the Count said. “Can you not see how he weakens? In but a few more days he shall be ours.” He looked on me with such a strange expression; had I seen it on a woman, I might have called it desire.

“He wakes,” one of the dark ones said, “He can hear us.”

“And what harm?” the fair one laughed. “Did you not hear? He will be one of us soon enough.”

The Count stepped forward, towering over me, leaning forward until our faces were almost touching. I longed to run, and yet my limbs were like leaden bars; I could not move an inch.

“I wish we might sate our thirst on him just a little,” one of the Weird Sisters said, “If only just a little, before his blood is lost to us forever.”

Dracula’s burning eyes were locked on mine. “No; he is mine,” he said; then he bent his head to my neck.

I hope with all that is in me that it was merely a dream; but a deep foreboding in my chest says it was not. And if so, am I not to become one of them? A despised fiend; an unclean creature of the night? And yet there is no way to escape; I am too weak to rise from bed.

I fear in my heart that I may never rise from this bed again.

*****

_25 May. -_ Please excuse the messiness of my handwriting; I am almost too weak to hold the pen.

I know now that the doctor is not coming. I know the Count never called for him - for it is he himself who has done this to me. I will be as one of them; a foul creature of darkness, my eternal soul lost to the night.

I think now in my last moments of my dear Mina, and of my great friend Hawkins. It grieves me that they will never know what happened; that they will never know how I think of them as I lie here dying, and that they will never know how grateful I am to them both for their love and care and great generosity toward me.

If it be that anyone who comes later should find this diary, and should know how to read it, I pray you will take it to them, and let it explain to them what happened; I shall write their addresses at the end of this entry. It is a futile hope, but it is a light to which I cling, even as I must soon be consumed by the dark.

And now let me set down the pen, and in my last moments think only of them whom I love - and whom I hope never to meet again.

*****


	2. Chapter 2

_“We are no less beautiful, for being doomed.”_

I woke to the darkness of the tomb.

I knew that once I would have been frozen to the very core with fear; but now the cold, dank grave held no terror for me. The great lid of my coffin rose on silent hinges when I pushed it, and I rose slowly, and stepped out into a great dark room. Yet to me it was not dark; my eyes saw as if the world were cloaked in bright moonlight, and by them I could see that I stood in an old, ruined chapel. Arrayed on the flagstones ahead of me were Dracula and the three sisters; and between them, on his knees, a young man.

The Weird Sisters hissed words of welcome in their low, whispering voices; but Dracula simply raised his arm and beckoned. I could not resist any more than if he had pulled me by a rope drawn tight about my chest.

The young man cowered and moaned when I joined them; his wide eyes caught the moonlight pouring in through the broken roof as he stared up at me. The Count moved to lay a hand on the youth’s shoulder, and I looked up into his burning, red eyes. I knew then what he wished me to do.

Some spark of human conscience still lived in my hollow chest, and when I looked down upon the terrified boy, I did not move. He began to speak, and though I did not understand the words, that he was begging for his life was clear.

I saw Dracula draw something sharp and metal from his coat. “Are you not thirsty, my love?” he said, his hateful voice full of mirth. His arm moved lightning quick; his knife opened the youth’s throat in a single strike.

The smell of blood hit my nose like the scent of the sweetest perfume; I fell to it without conscious thought, gorging myself until none was left.

Around me the Weird Sisters howled; I felt them stroking my hair, caressing my face, filling the air with their high, fiendish laughs. When at last I felt sated I sat back, my mouth red and wet; and in that moment Dracula grasped my face with one hand, pulling me up into a rough, wild kiss.

He was no longer hateful to me; I let him lick and suck the blood from my lips, welcomed his tongue as it snaked into my mouth. Around us the Sisters moaned and danced, their ragged dresses rustling around their thin spectral forms, their bare feet slapping the cold flagstones in a rough, stirring rhythm. “Master, our master,” they sang, “Let us welcome him, let us welcome him.” Their hard voices twined and bent about and around each other, joining into one sinuous, unholy chorus.

Dracula dismissed them with a sharp wave of his hand. “Wait! Have patience!” he cried, tearing his lips from mine. “Tonight he is mine - and mine alone!”

The Sisters wailed and pouted; then as one they melted into the moonlight and flew away, and I was alone with the Count. 

He did not speak, but led me forward by the hand toward the altar, dragging the boy’s stiff form along with us. When we reached it, he pushed me down to my knees, then dipped his finger into the congealing blood at the boy’s ruined throat, and with it slowly, carefully anointed my forehead. “Three marriages I have made in this place, sealed and bound by blood.” Here he took up his knife again, and made a slash through the palm of his own hand. “Let the Devil Himself witness this, the fourth sacred marriage compact.” He held out his bleeding hand to me, and I found I could not help but put my lips to it. The desire for blood was so strong in me, even when I had thought it sated by the lifeblood of that poor unfortunate who lay beside us; but as I drank down the blood of Dracula, I felt it burn through my throat and chest, tracing itself in patterns down my veins. I moaned, the sound of one gripped in passion; and in a second Dracula drew my head up and into another of his sharp kisses.

“And thus, one half of the pact is done,” he said once he drew away. He took both my hands, lifting me to my feet.

“What is the other?” I asked. The sound of my own voice startled me; it rung clear as a bell, beautiful as diamond and equally as hard.

A wicked smile curved Dracula’s lips, and he pushed me roughly back against the altar. “Can you not guess?” he whispered against my ear. I was clad only in my nightshirt, and I felt his cold hand slide up the bare skin of my inner thigh. “What marriage is complete without a wedding night?”

An echo of fear whispered deep within my heart; but it was there and gone like a flash of water on sunlight. “Forgive me, I do not know…” I whispered, as his lips caressed my throat.

“You will be a quick study, I am sure,” the Count whispered, humour suffusing his voice. He set both hands under my thighs and lifted me as easily as if I were a child, settling me upon the altar, then caught my lips again. As we kissed I felt his hands on my skin, pushing up the hem of my nightclothes so that I was exposed to the cold night air. I do not know if a creature so bloodless and pale as I can blush; but I felt no shame. He stepped back and looked at me, seeming to drink in the sight, and I saw his lips move, though I could not hear what he said. Then he looked to the cold corpse on the floor, his wicked grin widening as he said, “Our faithful friend will help us one more time, I think.” He dragged the corpse up and dipped his fingers once again; they came away dripping.

It was strange to me, to watch things that I knew once would have left me trembling, and be so unmoved. Yet I was calm, even anticipatory, as he came close again. His kiss was rougher this time, full of the sharpness of teeth; and I moaned into his mouth as his wet hand touched me as no one yet had before. He encircled me with his broad hand, and moved in long, slow strokes up and down my shaft, catching my gasping mouth with his kiss.

This continued until without warning he pushed me back; I fell like a ragdoll across the altar-top at his will. He stared down at me, a possessive, hungry light in his eyes. Once more he dipped his hand in that unclean font of cooling blood, and once more his hand came away dripping wet and red in the moonlight. He trailed his fingers once down my shaft; then his hand moved farther back, making me start. I looked up at him, and saw the amusement in his eyes; then I let him take my mouth in another rough kiss as his blood-slicked fingers slid inside me.

I had never been touched in such a way by anyone, man or woman, before; but my body reacted as if it had been made for it, pleasure curling through my stomach and across my skin. Soon enough he removed his fingers, leaving me wanting; but he stood back only long enough to release his thick, hard length before stepping back, his hands closing like steel traps around my hips as he pulled me forward, onto him. I moaned and fell back across the altar, gasping as he slid deep inside me.

I made such noises for him, my desperate moans echoing in the eaves of that broken, profane church. He was not merciful, nor gentle; he drove into me, so hard it pushed me back across the altar-top with each thrust, the old stone rough against my skin.

I know not how long we remained locked in that passionate, carnal embrace; but by the urging of his hand I eventually spent, and after several more rough thrusts he stilled, his eyes closed. This was the most open, unguarded expression I had ever seen on the Count’s face; pure, unadulterated pleasure - and triumph.

I closed my eyes, and felt his lips against my ear. “Now the pact is complete, my love,” he whispered. “Come; we have much work to do.”

He stepped back, and I hissed as our bodies separated. When he pulled me to my feet, my new, strong legs did not shake or tremor; his rough treatment of my body seemed to have left no mark, save the blood now splattered across my thighs.

Without speaking the Count led me again by the hand, out through the church door and into the cold, clear night. Still the moon rode high in the heavens, and I could see its clear light reflected in the glittering surface of a small, round pool at the foot of a dark elm. We walked to it side by side, and at the pool’s edge we both stopped to divest ourselves of our clothing. I pulled my bloodied, ruined nightshirt over my head, then stepped slowly, hesitantly into the pool. I expected the bite of cold water, but to my dead skin it felt merely cool and refreshing, like diving deep into a mill pond on a hot, dusty summer’s day. The size of the pool belied its depth; I found I could submerge myself up to my shoulders.

I felt the Count’s lips touch my neck, and his hands caressed my skin under the dark water. I lay back in his arms, and slowly, slowly he washed the blood from me, letting his hands linger in my most intimate places. By the time I was clean I wanted him again, was eager for his touch; and again he took me, the hard planes of his body limned in silver moonlight, my hands clutching the gnarled, twisted roots of the dark elm.

It was there, as he held me and I stared up into the shifting branches of that ancient tree, that I asked, “What work would you have me do, master?”

Yet again his lips kissed my neck, as if he were reliving the way he had transformed me, the means by which he had stolen me from the mortal coil. “You will do my bidding, will you, my love? Before, you were obstinate.”

“I am your willing servant, my master.”

“Then it will be as I have planned. You shall be my guide - and we shall go to London.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading - and Happy Yuletide!


End file.
